Zanthis

A have a few questions on Find Weakness, just to clarify and make sure I understand how it works: I successfully use Find Weakness targeting resistant defenses against a target with 4 PD (characteristic) and Armor: 10rPD and no other defenses. His defenses become 4 PD and 5rPD, correct? If my Find Weakness is with one attack only, that attack being a single non-killing attack such as Martial Strike, was it legal to target resistant defenses? Assuming #1 & #2 are yes, then if I attack with my Martial Strike, I'm going up against 9 defense (4PD+5rPD)? If I had targeted normal defenses instead, the target would have 2 PD and 10rPD against my attack, correct? If #4 is yes, then in that situation my Martial Strike would be going up against 12 defense (2PD+10rPD) correct? Thanks in advance.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? So let me get this straight. You completely missed the entire point of an example of the difference between Sectional and an Activation roll? I'm sorry you couldn't let the example help you. At this point, I can only assume you have no interest in seeing how Find Weakness works with Hit Locations. You've made up your mind. I'd recommend you just don't use the two together. Too bad you didn't quote #2, here let me do it for you: 2. The target’s Resistant Defenses (such as Armor or Force Field). However, Find Weakness has no effect on Damage Reduction unless the GM specifically permits this. Notice how in point #1 it says Damage Resistance, which is a power, a power that Armor Boy doesn't happen to have btw. And how in point #2 contains a power that Armor Boy most certainly does have, called Armor. Maybe the FAQ just confusing on this point. I could be wrong. Enjoy your gaming, no hard feelings, have fun!

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? I'm sorry Kolava, you missed the minumum 30 lines per post requirement for this thread. You'll have to go back and edit your post.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? Maybe an example in a campaign using hit locations: Armor Boy: PD 2, ED 2 #1 Armor 4rPD/4rED, Activation 15-, OAF: Body Suit #2 Lack of Weakness -2, OAF: Body Suit (NOT LINKED: Just in same focus) #3 Armor 12rPD/12rED, Sectional: Protects 10-13, OAF: Breast Plate #4 Lack of Weakness -3, Linked to above, OAF: Breast Plate Now, Ninja Boy (who has Find Weakness with his Martial Strike at 11-) decides to teach Armor Boy a lesson and jumps him after school. He begins by using his Find Weakness power. He must now choose which defense he wishes to target with his find weakness: normal, resistant, power defense, etc. He chooses resistant defenses (even though his Martial Strike is just normal damage) figuring that most of Armor Boy's defenses will be resistant. Now, before rolling for Find Weakness, we must total up the LoW present. Power #1 is not LoW so is ignored. Power #2 is LoW and has no activation roll even though it is in the same focus as Power #1 which does have an activation roll. So that's a -2 penalty on the FWeakness roll so far. Next, power #3. Power #3 is not LoW so is ignored. Lastly, Power #4 which is LoW. However, it is Linked to Power #3, so we need to make sure Power #3 applies in this situation. Well, is Power #3 "activated" in this situation? Yes, because it has resistant defenses and that is what Find Weakness is targeting in this case. Since Power #3 is "activated" (or "hit" if you prefer) the Linked LoW (Power #4) applies resulting in an additional -3 LoW for a total of -5 to the roll. If Ninja Boy makes his roll, all Armor Boy's resistant defenses will be halved, ending up at 2rPD/2rED and 6rPD/6rED for Powers #1 and #3 respectively. If Ninja Boy had targeted Normal Defenses instead, only Power #2 would have reduced the Find Weakness roll. While the LoW penalty would be lower, it would only halve Armor Boy's natural PD and ED since those are his only Normal Defenses, resulting in 1 PD and 1 ED. If Power #2 had been Linked to Power #1 instead of just occupying the same focus, an activation roll would have been made on the Armor (Power #1) and if successful would have allowed the LoW (Power #2) to function against the Find Weakness. I hope that makes it clear. I can't think of anything else to try.

Re: Real and Active Point Limit Campaigns Whatever works for you. I just find if I'm that worried about GM vetting and GM bias, then the campaign has larger problems. Please understand, I played a good six years with min-max players under a number of systems. We used to abuse the heck out of all kinds of things. We had to make rules to cover the wierdest things. Ultimately, we spent a lot more time making rules than playing games. Now I am much happier playing games with minimal house rules and very few restrictions. Without campaign limits in HEROs, most people will build reasonable characters (after your first couple characters in this format). The GM vetting process isn't a very big concern for use anymore. Honestly, most of us are more embarrased when something fails because we didn't notice the potential for abuse. Heck, a lot of the time we've all pitched in to help each other design tricky powers for our characters! As to your system, I've already said how I'd add up ECs. I agreed on how you did MPs and stated that VPPs needed no special house rules since your existing ones already covered it. That you have had a disagreement with another player in your own campaign on the method to calculate these things suggestions your players are trying to walk the edge of allowable within your rules. Same thing happens in campaigns with caps. If 90 AP is the offensive cap, amazing how many people have 90 AP attacks. I wish you the best of luck with your system. Someone on here says it best in their sig (paraphrasing): There is only one wrong way to game: The Way of No Fun.

Re: Real and Active Point Limit Campaigns That example is the reason I don't allow x2 foci for +5 points, ever. Just too easy to abuse. But I could just as easily have made 64 duplicates with one such gun each. The point is, while your approach is interesting I think you're making the PP rules overly complicated. The point of ECs is to reward tight character concept. The disadvantage is a character with a more narrow focus and fewer SFX resulting in increased vulnerability to certain enemies. I always review PPs carefully and don't see why you should need to impose extra rules on balancing such constructs when they should each be receiving careful GM scrutiny anyway. Such rules can sometimes imply to players that if they follow them, their character is "legit" and result in resentment when a GM is forced to veto the hero. That is the primary reason I don't use any caps or restrictions in my campaigns. GM approves everything on a case by case basis and the players have a set of "power ranges" to help them decide if 50 STR is gonna be considered incredible or just hoo-hum by others in the game. This lets them build more towards a concept than attempt to maximize themselves under a set of mathmatical limits.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? It seems clear to me from the rules, especially the FAQ on Find Weakness I mentioned earlier, that there is no conflict or problem with sectional defenses and Find Weakness. Sectional Armor: Under normal circumstances armor with this limitation is "activated" through a Hit Location roll. When so "activated" all Linked powers are "activated" as well. Find Weakness is not an attack however, and does not use an attack roll. It is a sense. Targeting someone with Find Weakness will automatically "activate" all sectional armor of the type targeted (normal, resistant, power defense, mental defense, etc). This will result in Linked powers becoming available. Activation Armor: Under normal circumstances armor with this limitation is activated by an activation roll made when the player would like a chance to apply the defense's effects. When targeted by Find Weakness, a player would presumably opt to try and activate their armor which has LoW Linked. Success allows the LoW to reduce the chance of success on the Find Weakness. Failure means the Find Weakness is not penalized by the Linked LoW modifier. I really don't find the situation overly complex or exotic. Careful reading of the rules and especially FAQ has cleared the situation up for me. I don't really know what else I can say at this point except to recommend you ask Steve using a short example like your Sectional Man and Activation Man. He seems to prefer yes/no questions and if you ask anything more complex you'll probably get a "see FRED page xx and/or FAQ".

Re: Real and Active Point Limit Campaigns Ok, 175R/350A point cap, or a 1:2 ratio. Should preserve game balance. How about this (sorry to reuse an example guys ) 1 pip RKA, Penetrating x4(+2), Affects Desolid(+1/2), Area Effect: One Hex(+1/2) (20 Active Points), OAF Gun(-1), 16 Charges(-0) [10 Real Points] x64 Identical Guns (30 Active Points) [30 Real Points] 62 Extra Limbs: Arms & Hands, Inherent(+1/4) (6 Active Points) [6 Real Points] Now I can MPA for 64 Body in a single attack against a DCV of 3 in one phase. Doesn't sound balanced to me, but my point total ratio is 46r/56a, nearly a 1:1 ratio! Cool, it works, and no fancy power pools needed! All that to illustrate that you won't find a way of balancing a game with math. You need the GM to look at something and say, sorry, I don't care if that does come out legal, no way am I letting that through. And that will always apply to ECs, MPs and VPPs.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? I'd tend to disagree, either that or the rules in FRED page 181, second paragraph are extremely unclear. They read, to me at least, that rolls must be actively made whenever the character wishes to use the power, not when he gets hit. Note the use of Phase not Segment and in the FAQ Zero-Phase Action (which can only be performed during a Phase in which you are acting). However, after reading the second question you quoted from the FAQ I can see it was an issue of the FRED being unclear. So you are using the Action That Takes No Time. Alright, no house rule needed then. Just FAQ rules . Yup, not a house rule. But also not a situation that should be causing you this much stress. I explained above how it works. Got it. However, in Activate Man's case, you'll roll to activate his LoW as soon as FWeakness is used against him, assuming it is targeting the same type of defense the LoW is protected. This is different than Sectional Man's situation because Hit Locations and Activation rolls are not the same.

Re: Help? Need power to counter shapeshift Just make sure you define your Unusual Sense as not using Simulated Sense Groups, otherwise it'll likely be covered by Shapeshift.

Re: Real and Active Point Limit Campaigns Elemental Controls I believe you are trying to make the situation more complicated than it is. Based on your logic concerning ECs, you are determining the total number of Active Points in powers availabe. However, this logic runs into problems when you consider powers such as Multiform or Duplicate and things such as Followers. Say I make a 20 point Multiform (so it can have 100 points). How do you price that in Active Points? 20 or 100 or 120? What about if I use the +5 point Adder to get double the number of forms, so I spend 25 points (real and active according to straight FRED) and I have 2 multiforms built on 100 points each plus my true form built on 325 remaining points. Same thing goes with an EC. The price reduction functions similar to the low price of the "double number of" Adders in Multiform and Duplicate. You get a discount because of similar effect. If you think this makes EC too powerful under your house rules, I recommend you reread the rules on adjustment powers used against ECs (pg 204) and also recall that you can't make a MPA with powers in an EC and can't have 0 END powers in an EC. Long story short: I agree with your friend. Your method makes ECs more expensive and less desirable under your house rules, a situation I do not think is good. Multipower I got 58/90 when I added them up. Otherwise I agree with you. Variable Power Pool You shouldn't need any special rules for these. Your Real/Active point totals make sense, but your one concern should not be an issue. Your game has a limit on Real:Active points. Players cannot violate that ever. Not even using a VPP. This would be like having a game with a maximum of 90 Active Points in a power, then someone with a VPP building a 900 Active Point power. Not legal. Remember, ECs and MPs have a ! mark next to them. VPPs have a STOP. They have those for a reason. It means they will require some careful review by the GM to determine if something damaging to the game is being done. Don't get too tied up in making rules to "balance" EC/MP/VPP since you won't be able to find any. Instead, get it close and let the GM keep things on the up and up.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? And my point is, do what you will in your own campaign. I'm fine with FWeak and Hit locations. Not only that, I'm also fine with you not using FWeak with hit locations in your campaigns. I am not fine with your suggestion the two should official be disallowed in conjunction across the board. Actually, there is, albeit indirectly. And the answer is No, you can't take that limitation. And the reason is because Find Weakness does not use hit locations (it's a special/sensory power) and as a result that limitation isn't limiting. In Sectional Man's case, any Find Weakness roll against Resistant Defenses will have to get through the -8 LoW from his Helmet; no hit roll is required. You treat it like you would any other power with that limitation. Activate Man rolls to activate his LoW each phase he wishes to use it. If he succeeded in his last roll then he gets to apply it against the FWeakness attack. Otherwise he doesn't. If you are handling "covers limited areas" SFX Activation Rolls on a per hit bases, then you'll need to house rule the situation, but since you're already using house rules at that point, I don't see the problem. I'd recommend: Roll the activation as soon as the FWeakness attack is declared (assuming the LoW in question covers the defense targeted by the FWeakness) and if it succeeds then the FWeak roll is penalized, otherwise it isn't.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? I already suggested one, but rather than accepting it, you choose to find a different way to build it, one that required an unusual limitation, to describe it mildly. I'm sure you could find alternate ways of building just about any power anyone could care to name. That doesn't argue for the removal of a power. Otherwise we'd better get rid of everything except Transform. Whatever defense he has targeted with FWeakness. Check out the FAQ and search on "counterpart". That's the Q&A you want. So if he targets Normal defenses, all normal defenses, no matter in how many sections, are affected. You know immediately whether FWeak worked or not. The LoW penalty applies to the roll when he makes it. If a LoW defense is being affected by FWeakness, it penalizes the roll. If FWMan targets a defense with LoW he gets penalized, period. If he doesn't, he doesn't. True, except it isn't the same effect. No Skill Roll required (could be added, sorta) Not cumulative (impossible to duplicate with AP) Halves more defenses than FWeakness since you must target Normal and Resistant defenses separately Does not require a separate action to "activate" the AP (can work around too) AP would apply to all targets, not just one on whom you'd made a SR Even if you add a SR to AP, failing it doesn't prevent you from trying again You don't want FWeakness in your campaigns, fine, don't use it. I don't see any good arguements from you that I should remove it from mine.

Re: Power Problem Actually, naked advantages/adders are instant by default, unless your GM makes an exception. I didn't assume the exception, but if your GM allows then you can indeed remove the continous. The big price killer is that you need to use FF not Armor for the base power. The MP method may be the most cost efficient way of handling the problem. But the simplest way would be to house rule your own Adder for Armor that allows it to Cover Held Items, just like FF has. It'd probably cost +15 points considering the cost difference between FF and Armor. Then use the Naked Adder method and you get: Armor(10rPD/10rED) Active Points: 30, Real Points: 30 Covers Held Items(+15 Point Naked Adder), Continous(+1) Active Points: 30, Real Points: 30, 3 Endurance/phase That saves you 20 points over the previous design using FF, 25 points if your GM allows you to avoid the Continous advantage. But the real savings is it only costs 3 points for 2 DEF using this method, while the FF method it costs 3 points for 1 DEF, twice as much! If 30 points is too steep (and I think it is) then consider limitations. How about: Covers Held Items(+15 Point Naked Adder), Continous(+1), Extra Time: Full Phase(-1/2), Concentration(1/2 DCV;-1/4), Increased END(x2;-1/2). Active Points: 30, Real Points: 13 (7 if your GM doesn't require Continous)

Re: Power Problem How about: Force Field(10rPD/10rED): 0 END (+1/2), Persistant (+1/2), IPE (+1) Active Points: 60, Real Points 60, 0 Endurance Covers Held Items(+10 Naked Adder):Continous (+1) Activei Points: 20, Real Points 10, 2 Endurance That should do what you want. As soon as you activate the Naked Adder it will cause the visible special effects you want, and since its only Constant not Persistant, it will drop if the character gets KO'd. Plus it costs endurance. Tad expensive though since you aren't using Armor. Edit: Whoops, you'll also have to pay endurance on the FF when the Adder is active, since your 0 END/Persistant don't account for the extra 10 active points the adder is supplying.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? I personally do not believe FWeak requires any house rules for use with hit locations. You believe differently. The only reason I suggested additional options for FWeak is because of obvious interest in this thread, additional options with FWeakness would be nice. Not necessary however. It works perfectly fine with hit locations, and the house rule to correct the problem is extremely simple (no FWeakness) while the reverse is not true (Drain/Suppress Only Against Me). I should mention, your work arounds methods of duplicating FWeakness with PSL vs HL rolls only work if the target actually has a weak hit location. With sectional defenses, it is possible to eliminate this making every HL very very similar. But even that unusual case aside, even if I do have +8 PSL vs HL, that doesn't help me all that much against an unknown opponent whose armor may be unusually distributed. I can't "find" his weakness with your model, only exploit it once I've found it through other means. Further, I would like to mention that FWeakness is considered an Unusual Sense and subject to the normal rules for senses in that it can be flashed, etc. And I'm not even sure what GM in his right mind allowed FW at the -19 level. Might as well let them make it an OAF gun, +5 pts for second gun and MPA too, so they can quarter defenses every phase. Hmm, how about Autofire too? Or Area Effect? That's just rampantly stupid, although I can see an inexperienced GM letting that slip through. I know I missed many very abusive constructs when I started. Conclusion: FWeakness is fine. It would be nice if it had more options so as to be more flexible. This would also, as a side effect, make it simplier to house rule in HL campaigns should the GM feel that is necessary. If not, just exercise a little GM fiat.

Re: Lack of Power coverage

Re: Please review this new advantage After this the math broke down I believe . The Naked Advantage Personal Immunity will only cost 6.5 base points rounded to 6 (the +1/4 applies to the base cost of the power it affects, not the active point cost). Think of it this way. Make your Obuscate with Personal Immunity and without. Figure out the difference in points, and that difference is the cost of the naked advantage. Next, you need Usable as Attack(+1), At Range(+1/2) for a total Active Point and Real Cost of 15 points and 1 endurance/phase. Let's add a few limitations: Extra Time: 1 Segement (-1/2), x2 END (-1/2). That brings the real cost down to 7 points and the endurance cost to 3/phase. Other limitations could be: Non-combat only, only verse normals, not verses target with higher point total, or even requires skill roll.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? My point was, Drains/Suppress can apply to things other than defenses. The proposed limitation: Effects Only Apply Against Me (-X/X) would be okay as long as no one wanted to use it for something other than defenses. However, putting that type of restriction on a limitation is a little out of character for HEROs and it would have to be done in the official rules and not via house rules to avoid the situation I described. Messy, yucky, and all around kludge for the effect intended. Sure, you can remove any power from HEROs and someone will find a way to duplicate its effect with other powers. Doesn't mean you should. Depends on the GM, just like everything else. If you let someone abuse it, then yes. It may be easier to abuse "out of the box" than pentrating or HA, but you wouldn't allow a 1pip RKA, Autofire, 4xPenetrating, AE:One Hex, OAF gun with a +5pts for second equipment so a player could MPA everything to death either. Personally, I see Area Effect:One hex cause more harm than FWeak. It makes OCV and DCV nearly pointless, from the first attack, no skill roll needed and there is no simple defense. Which I agree with. However, the only reason this does not generate invulnerable defenses are there are too many defenses to max them all. But you'd rather remove LoW. Not that LoW is really that big a point hog, but it is still one extra defense. As is, barring GM fiat, in most games using AP caps becoming nearly invulnerable isn't too hard. Only if you deliberately cap defensive power APs lower than offensive, or don't include manuevers in attack APs, is this not true. I'm skipping your example because I didn't find the comparison at all equivalent. I can tell from this, and your other posts, that you don't like FWeak in Hit Location games. Fine, don't use it. That's a very simple house rule. Very similar to not allowing EDM. If you are campaigning to get FWeak removed, then I'll thank you to pick something else to campaign on, since I rather like FWeak and don't see a need to have official rules changed to fit your personal house rules, especially when the house rules you need to "fix" this problem are "no FWeakness" and the rules I'd need to fix removal of this power are "Convert FWeakness to a Drain, or Suppress, somehow, that only benefits you...and has a skill roll...plus a few other details I haven't really had a chance to think through yet". Ugh, I feel like I'm trying to build an Astral Form here!

Re: What's the Benefit of Having Same Power Twice? I'd say backups are just that, backups and not for use by other team members except in situations of the most dire need. I'd tell the players such a situation should be so rare, that if we keep playing this campaign every weekend for ten years, it might happen twice. Further, in the Iron Man example, I'd apply combat penalties to using "unfamilar suits designed for a different person".

Re: Please review this new advantage You could also consider Personal Immunity to the Invis/Shapeshift as a Naked Advantage, Usable On Others.

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? I am in effect doing nothing of the sort. Let me explain it more clearly. First of all, I did not say the rules should be adjusted, you did. I said a provision should be added for applying FWeak to only 1 hit location. This means a new limitation available to FWeak. Suppose such a limitation was listed as Only versus one Hit Location, -1/2. If you don't want to allow the full version of FWeak in your campaign, make all FWeak take that limitation at -0 instead of -1/2. There could also be a Not Cumulative -1/2 limitation on FWeak added to the rules. That would be nice too. Hopefully my explanation has illustrated how far I am from agreeing with you that FWeak and Hit Locations are really two different rules for the same effects. I think such a limitation on a Drain or Suppress is very ugly. Drain only applies versus me? How would that work? Suppose I applied such a limitation to a CON Drain. If I drain someone down to 1 CON, but the effects of the drain only apply versus me, what happens if someone else drains them for 1 CON, do the fall unconscious? Or maybe this limitation can only be taken when applied versus PD/ED. Oh, and Armor. And FF. Sorry, too confusing and messy for me. Easier to use FWeak by far than hack together a work around with Drain/Suppress. Arguing from history can sometime be helpful. In this case, I see it more as not putting an official rule in against FWeak+Hit Locations and rather allowing individual GMs to make their own ruling. HEROs does that alot, and I like that aspect. Most of the complaints you have about FWeak are when people abuse it. Seriously, so what if Superman only has -5 LoW. How long is that Gnome going to last fighting Superman? How many FWeak rolls will he actually get off anyway? One, IF he's lucky. Considering how easy it is to abuse defenses in HEROs as is, I don't mind Bricks needing to buy another one, especially a defense that isn't 100% (although -18 LoW means less than a 0.5% chance of a successful FWeak roll against you).

Re: What sort of benefits do Fringe Benefits confer? You know, since I play entirely with min-maxers to whom the concept of non-munchkin characters is pretty much foreign, we came up with a way of getting ourselves to build more interesting characters. The GM defines a certain number of our starting points, say 25-50, that CANNOT be used in any way, shape or form to benefit combat, directly or indirectly. We are free to not use those points, but since we can't use them for combat most of us actually spend some time fleshing our characters out and as a result we tend to be much happier and more attatched to our heroes.

Re: Using Attack Roll as Burnout Roll It wouldn't be unreasonable to use Burnout. If you reverse the roll in Burnout, so that a "successful" roll indicates Burnout (rather than a failed roll), you can combine it with your to hit roll and an "-8 or less" would become a -3/4 limitation. This way it only can burnout if you actually hit with it (which makes more sense than breaking on a miss). Other possiblities: Focus, Breakable. Somewhat similar to Burnout if you actually determine damage done to the weapon when it is used. Also can be destroyed independent of attacking with it. Also: Side Effect, 0 END Suppress (effectively permanent) on the weapon itself limited to when you successfully hit. This results in the weapon slowly losing effectiveness each time you attack with it.

Re: Always On + Linked They can just deal. I'll claim its harder for one character to learn than another. And in a way, it kinda makes sense. But not being able to be healed (very well) in combat is a fairly annoying effect. Our battles have sometimes taken multiple 8+ hour sessions to resolve. When your six person team are holding off 30+ demons/devils and more keep gating in every turn in addition to the existing creatures summoning their own allies a battle can get very long indeed.